China

US President Ronald Reagan and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone meet at Camp David in 1986.

President Trump said he plans to withdraw from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. US National Security Advisor John Bolton implied the government of Japan already agreed.

Not long after Bolton’s statement, Foreign Minister Taro Kono told reporters the Abe government needed to discuss the fate of the treaty with US officials before commenting. Six days later US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Tom DiNanno and Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asia Marc Knapper arrived in Tokyo for a three-day dialog on US extended deterrence guarantees for Japan. The fate of the INF treaty was on their agenda. What did Japanese officials tell the Trump administration? Read more >

Some US analysts and officials argue the United States should withdraw from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty because it prevents the United States from responding to China’s deployed short- and intermediate-range ground-based missiles. They argue the United States should abandon a bilateral arms control agreement intended to prevent Russia from threatening Western Europe to make it easier for the United States to threaten China.

These are dubious arguments. The US nuclear arsenal is more than 10 times larger than China’s and Chinese military strategists already believe the United States possesses conventional military superiority. Read more >

Last fall, as North Korea raced to demonstrate it could strike the United States with a nuclear-armed missile, the Chinese government acceded to strict international economic sanctions it previously resisted. This spring, after North Korea declared it had achieved its goal and would stop further testing, the Chinese government acceded to North Korean requests for greater engagement, including high-profile meetings between Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un.

President Trump, along with many US officials and observers, praised China’s willingness to sign on to tougher sanctions. But they greeted China’s positive response to North Korea’s testing freeze with a mix of skepticism and suspicion. Trump suggested his Chinese counterpart was playing geopolitical poker with the summit in Singapore. US observers wondered whether China felt threatened by the summit and intentionally undermined it.

China’s a big country with large economy. But it also has an enormous population. When you take every Chinese individual into account the average person ranks 73rd among all nations in income and 72nd in production. Despite all the talk about the rise of China, after three decades of rapid economic growth China is still a middle income nation with a developing economy, well behind the upper income nations with advanced economies like the United States.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama (second from left) consults with US President Barack Obama during a 2010 summit on nuclear security.

During a recent trip to Japan I had the opportunity to discuss Japan’s role in the current North Korean nuclear crisis with Yukio Hatoyama, a former prime minister. He led the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) to victory in September 2009, becoming the only Japanese politician to defeat the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) at the polls since end of the Second World War. Read more >